Baby tang in 29gal?

[pledosophy]

Do you think a blue tang can live in 29 gal?

If you buy a CB one, they can last in a 29g a little while until they need a bigger setup.

 

[Tamberav]

Anyways that is just my theory and evidence and anyone who buys a baby Tang or other potentially large adult fish... well it’s probably helpful to document their health and growth and surroundings and then we all might have a better understanding.

 

[sim2142]

I don’t feel that can be determined by just observing a fish.

One can find numerous posts that sailfin tangs are regarded as a fast growing tang... at least to 4-5 inches range before they slow.

If a sailfin tang is kept in a small tank and still small a year later. This should at least should set off alarm bells to need more research.

Is there research papers on sailfin growth rate in the wild? I would think they would want to grow fast and get bigger and not be prey and get to breeding size but can’t say I ever tried to research this.

I would think it is possible that a tang kept in a small tank may be under stress that isn’t visible in its eating or swimming habits but perhaps still stressed. Enough to cause higher level of stress hormones or such and possibly stunt growth? Hence why your tank is much smaller then some other peoples experiences.

Just a theory, maybe a bored person can post data and why it is safe or not safe.

That could be right and Its entirely possible that i could be overlooking a biological trait of these fish completely.

Unfortunately though, most of the time (with myself included), when people say that "my fish grew at "X" speed in "X" size tank or that "X" animal needs "X" environment to be happy its entirely anecdotal and irrelevant due to bias or lack of information.

There is a large variance in fish environment, feeding competitors and other forms of bias in each tank/tank keeper.

For myself i know the growing rate of my tang in my environment only which makes it a big problem when trying to establish whether something is true or not. Similarly in this thread no one can tell for sure the correct growing rates or factors contributing to growth or stress in tangs, unless we have a masters of research here who wants to sacrifice a significant amount of time and money using scientific methods to prove it.

Another big unfortunate thing is that marine life is largely unstudied and under-funded in institutions when compared to other subjects. I did a multi search using my universities library search engine and struggled to find many papers on marine fish in general, let alone peer reviewed articles studying a specific trait of a marine animal in a specific environment outside of its natural habbitat.

It also sucks that for the average person to access most of this information you need to be a member of an institution/university or pay per paper.

Hopefully we get a study on it soon, or someone finds one.

 

[sim2142]

Here is my experience... Sailfin was purchased July 2020. It arrived skinny and pinched. It was in a 25g conditioning tank for awhile but a tank mate was showing ich so they went through hybrid TTM and then spent many more weeks in an observation tank.

July 2020 in a 25g observation tank, new arrival

Aug 2020 the Tang was in the observation tank which was just plastic plants, pvc, and brick. This was after 13 days of hybrid TTM.

Sept 11, Tang went into 80 gallon.

Nov 1st 2020, Still small but gaining some adult colors and finally has a fat belly and filled out. No more paper tang.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

Tang on Jan 7th 2021

I think we can all agree this sailfin tang grew significantly from Nov 1st to Jan 1st.

That is what? Like 9 weeks time?

So why the growth spurt? Well I am no scientist but the tang was under stress before. It was QT and TTM... it was in small tanks... it probably ich since it’s tankmate did. And it arrived very skinny and under weight.

Once all Its stressors were gone. Space, diet, and disease were cured. It grew... a lot.

Space would certainly became an issue again once it reached a certain size.

I pulled the information from time stamps.

Ah nice, that is interesting and its also good to see your information and time stamps compared to the anecodatal stuff people were saying before.

Who knows, i could be completely wrong in keeping the baby tang in a small tank.

 

[Tamberav]

Ah nice, that is interesting and its also good to see your information and time stamps compared to the anecodatal stuff people were saying before.

Who knows, i could be completely wrong in keeping the baby tang in a small tank.

Just got lucky and was able to pull some pics and dates and wish I had more. Honestly this thread inspired me to keep better track of the fish I have. So I will try to photograph my fish or corals more often with dates and store them in a folder or such.

For science!

 

[daiseyreef75]

Buying a tang small then selling it or upscaling your tank when it grows is pretty common. An LFS in my area would accept it but I guess it varies between stores.

It’s been over a year and I couldn’t tell you that I’ve seen mine grow even a centimetre, it is also in a 29 gallon.

You are doing exactly what I was thinking a small sailfin tang. Has he grown at all since you got him? I'm upgrading to a 65 with 20gal sump in June so I was thinking of taking the risk. I have a small 2in Picasso trigger rn. He's peaceful but I did see him eat a Mcgosker's as it went into a death spasm when my filter broke.

 

[sim2142]

You are doing exactly what I was thinking a small sailfin tang. Has he grown at all since you got him? I'm upgrading to a 65 with 20gal sump in June so I was thinking of taking the risk. I have a small 2in Picasso trigger rn. He's peaceful but I did see him eat a Mcgosker's as it went into a death spasm when my filter broke.

There has been quite the debate over this topic haha.

I’m of the belief you can keep a tang in a tank which scales with its size but others may say no. Also I don’t know anything about trigger fish but my sailfin hasn’t grown significantly.

 

[daiseyreef75]

Properly sized glass box* with no predators and lots of food this has been debated before, proved adequate living for the fish first then debate.

adequate is debatable, you know every wild fish would travel farther in a wild reef than your tank. Unless its a goby in Seaworld's 15,000gal tank

 

[najer]

Please don't do it.
I rescued this scopas last March as a one inch fish, it had been kept in a small tank and was fed poorly, she had the hlle bad and was not eating.
She is now a 3 - 4 inch fish and very fit, baby tangs have two things to do, don't get eaten and eat and by eat I mean graze all day.
I worry that any tang in a 29 is going to get stressed quickly as they love to swim.

 

[Tamberav]

adequate is debatable, you know every wild fish would travel farther in a wild reef than your tank. Unless its a goby in Seaworld's 15,000gal tank

I posted my experience a page back. Once my sailfin was in good shape and in a decent sized tank. It grew extremely fast. More then doubled its size in 9 weeks. There are photos of the fish with dates so you can judge for yourself.

 

[fish farmer]

I don’t feel that can be determined by just observing a fish.

One can find numerous posts that sailfin tangs are regarded as a fast growing tang... at least to 4-5 inches range before they slow.

If a sailfin tang is kept in a small tank and still small a year later. This should at least should set off alarm bells to need more research.

Is there research papers on sailfin growth rate in the wild? I would think they would want to grow fast and get bigger and not be prey and get to breeding size but can’t say I ever tried to research this.

I would think it is possible that a tang kept in a small tank may be under stress that isn’t visible in its eating or swimming habits but perhaps still stressed. Enough to cause higher level of stress hormones or such and possibly stunt growth? Hence why your tang is much smaller then some other peoples experiences.

Just a theory, maybe a bored person can post data and why it is safe or not safe.

That could be right and Its entirely possible that i could be overlooking a biological trait of these fish completely.

Unfortunately though, most of the time (with myself included), when people say that "my fish grew at "X" speed in "X" size tank or that "X" animal needs "X" environment to be happy its entirely anecdotal and irrelevant due to bias or lack of information.

There is a large variance in fish environment, feeding competitors and other forms of bias in each tank/tank keeper.

For myself i know the growing rate of my tang in my environment only which makes it a big problem when trying to establish whether something is true or not. Similarly in this thread no one can tell for sure the correct growing rates or factors contributing to growth or stress in tangs, unless we have a masters of research here who wants to sacrifice a significant amount of time and money using scientific methods to prove it.

Another big unfortunate thing is that marine life is largely unstudied and under-funded in institutions when compared to other subjects. I did a multi search using my universities library search engine and struggled to find many papers on marine fish in general, let alone peer reviewed articles studying a specific trait of a marine animal in a specific environment outside of its natural habbitat.

It also sucks that for the average person to access most of this information you need to be a member of an institution/university or pay per paper.

Hopefully we get a study on it soon, or someone finds one.

I don't like to compare apples to oranges, but I'll throw some salmonid experience I have and there is plenty of data everywhere since they have been cultured for over 100 years.

Where I work we use certain percent body weight in determining what to feed our fish at a certain temperature and size. Higher temperature would dictate higher metabolism so higher feed rate. Also smaller fish have a higher percent to feed say 1% of their body weight per day while older brood stock would get 0.5% body weigh per day.

Another thing that can affect it is light cycle, longer day equals more activity. My boss when he worked in Alaska actually would slow the growth of the smolts by completely covering them in darkness to slow their activity when the fish were reaching the target size too early for release. We do similar darkness protocol on our newly hatched fry so they don't burn up their yolk sac to quickly.

This may not be as significant with tropical reef species due to less extreme temps and light cycle, but I wonder if differences in growth would be seen if one tank was run at 81 degrees F versus 76 degrees F. With salmonids a 5 degree difference does change things like eggs development and growth.

Different diets is a given, better foods should produce better growth....but may not need to feed as much, too much rich food may lead to internal problems that I'm sure at this point no one can really see without an autopsy.

Then there is flow, fish in the wild are more fit with regard to muscle mass IMO. They are swimming against tides, fleeing predators, etc. But with say a larger reef tank with better options for flow generators I could see fish in those types of tanks being more fit that a small tank with limited flow options. Fish in high flow tanks would more than likely need more food.

 

[Tamberav]

I don't like to compare apples to oranges, but I'll throw some salmonid experience I have and there is plenty of data everywhere since they have been cultured for over 100 years.

Where I work we use certain percent body weight in determining what to feed our fish at a certain temperature and size. Higher temperature would dictate higher metabolism so higher feed rate. Also smaller fish have a higher percent to feed say 1% of their body weight per day while older brood stock would get 0.5% body weigh per day.

Another thing that can affect it is light cycle, longer day equals more activity. My boss when he worked in Alaska actually would slow the growth of the smolts by completely covering them in darkness to slow their activity when the fish were reaching the target size too early for release. We do similar darkness protocol on our newly hatched fry so they don't burn up their yolk sac to quickly.

This may not be as significant with tropical reef species due to less extreme temps and light cycle, but I wonder if differences in growth would be seen if one tank was run at 81 degrees F versus 76 degrees F. With salmonids a 5 degree difference does change things like eggs development and growth.

Different diets is a given, better foods should produce better growth....but may not need to feed as much, too much rich food may lead to internal problems that I'm sure at this point no one can really see without an autopsy.

Then there is flow, fish in the wild are more fit with regard to muscle mass IMO. They are swimming against tides, fleeing predators, etc. But with say a larger reef tank with better options for flow generators I could see fish in those types of tanks being more fit that a small tank with limited flow options. Fish in high flow tanks would more than likely need more food.

Interesting thoughts. You mentioned activity and growth rates.

A small tang in a large tank will likely be more active since it has more space and potentially more flow. A small tang can still dart across a 6 foot tank with ease.

Then the question comes down to... is restricting a fishes activity by using a smaller tank size... if this slows growth. Is this unhealthy? Will this fishes life span be shortened? I doubt we have this data but just pondering.

If the tangs growth is restricted in a small tank then simply waiting for the fish to outgrow the tank to know when to upgrade seems like a flawed method unless there is 0 harm to a slowed growth rate. Which I am guessing we don’t really know.

So then it comes down to... putting a tang in a nano may be harmful. We don’t know for sure and it’s up to the person to decide what value a fishes existence has and whether they want to play to safe or potentially harm a fish.

Ofc no tank is the ocean but that’s a different debate.